Early premarket gappers
- Gapping up:
- CYTK +2.6%, NIO +2.1%, CWEN +1.9%, LI +1.9%, SKLZ +1.6%, SAIL +1%, JBLU +0.6%, CBL +0.5%, F +0.5%, NVTA +0.5%
- Gapping down:
- MU -4.8%, WDC -3.8%, CLDX -3.2%, ERJ -3.2%, ATEX -2%, ACRE -1.6%, PCT -1.5%, ACCD -1.2%, TAK -0.9%, PFE -0.7%, EDR -0.6%, INTC -0.6%, HON -0.5%
>>> Up
* Addtech Raised to Buy at ABG; PT 160 kronor
* Aker BP Raised to Overweight at Barclays; PT 510 kroner
* Gjensidige Raised to Buy at DNB Markets; PT 220 kroner
* Maersk Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan; PT 30,800 kroner
* TotalEnergies Raised to Buy at Jefferies; PT 60 euros
* Xior Raised to Buy at ING; PT 57 euros
* Zurich Airport Raised to Hold at Berenberg; PT 140 Swiss francs
>>> Down
* Abrdn plc Cut to Sell at Citi; PT 150 pence
* DWS Cut to Neutral at Citi; PT 26.50 euros
* Elkem Cut to Hold at Nordea
* Enel Cut to Hold at HSBC; PT 5.90 euros
* FDJ Cut to Sell at Citi; PT 31 euros
* FedEx Cut to Hold at Berenberg; PT $275
* Jupiter Cut to Sell at Citi; PT 135 pence
* Lancashire Cut to Equal-Weight at Barclays; PT 482 pence
* OVH Cut to Neutral at Citi; PT 18 euros
* Supermarket Income Cut to Hold at Panmure Gordon; PT 136 pence
* Swiss Re Cut to Equal-Weight at Barclays; PT 86 Swiss francs
>>> Initiation
* Bilfinger Reinstated Buy at Deutsche Bank; PT 42 euros
>>> Call
* Abrdn, Jupiter, DWS Downgraded at Citi on Downside Risks (+)
* After $30 Billion Rout, Food Delivery Firms Face Growth Slowdown
* FedEx Cut to Hold at Berenberg on Mounting Earnings Risks
* JPMorgan Strategists Say Energy Stocks Offer Best Risk-Reward (+)
* Sodexo Sees Strong 3Q, But Consensus Upgrade Unlikely: Jefferies (+)
* Vestas 2Q Order Intake Disappoints Despite Late Surge: Sydbank
* Zurich Airport Risks Largely Priced In, Berenberg Raises to Hold (+)
Elon Musk Takes Unusually Long Twitter Break
Billionaire is trying complete a planned $44 billion deal to buy the social-media platform
Elon Musk is on his longest stretch without posting on Twitter in nearly five years, a nine-day hiatus that comes in the midst of tumultuous efforts to complete his planned $44 billion deal to buy the platform.
The billionaire chief executive of Tesla Inc. TSLA -1.76%▼ last posted on June 21, marking Thursday as the most extended silence since October 2017. Normally a serial tweeter, he hasn’t gone more than six days without tweeting since January 2018, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of tweet data. Since then he has taken a few four-day breaks, most recently this past January, the analysis shows.
Mr. Musk’s break from Twitter follows a recent period in which he was especially active on the platform, with a steady flow of posts about the deal, in which he has talked about his criticism of the company and its policies as well as his plans. Of the 10 weeks with the most tweets from Mr. Musk since he joined the platform more than a decade ago, five have come since April 1. Mr. Musk’s large stake in Twitter Inc. TWTR -1.08%▼ became public on April 4, and he reached his deal to acquire it on April 25.
It couldn’t be determined why Mr. Musk, who runs Tesla and SpaceX, is missing from Twitter. He has long used the platform as a main channel of communication on a range of subjects, from rocket launches by SpaceX, to a question about cheese, to expressing opinions on U.S. politics. Unlike most other users with large followings, he often reacts or replies to posts from others.
The gap comes as Mr. Musk juggles several business and personal matters.
After a stretch of rapid growth and a surging stock price, Tesla is grappling with challenges including parts shortages and Covid-19 shutdowns in China, while also trying to increase production at two new factories. This week Tesla closed one of its Silicon Valley offices and laid off about 200 people there as part of the electric-vehicle maker’s plans to trim its salaried head count in the midst of rising costs, according to people familiar with the matter. Tesla is expected to report its first sequential decline in quarterly deliveries in more than two years.
In addition, some employees at Space Exploration Technologies Corp., as SpaceX is formally known, wrote a letter in June raising concerns and expressing frustration over recent public statements Mr. Musk made and his behavior, describing them as a source of embarrassment and distraction. The company then fired some of the employees involved, saying the letter diverted employees’ attention from company operations.
Mr. Musk’s team has told people involved with the Twitter acquisition that he has been less available recently because he has been dealing with personal issues, according to a person familiar with the matter.
During Mr. Musk’s recent absence from Twitter, his account surpassed 100 million followers, further solidifying his status as one of the platform’s most followed users.
Mr. Musk reached a deal in April to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share and take it private. A few weeks later he said the deal was on hold over concern that Twitter’s estimate of spam and fake accounts on its platform—which it has long pegged at less than 5% of its monetizable daily users—might be flawed. Twitter in recent weeks gave him historical tweet data and access to its so-called fire hose of near real-time tweets, people familiar with the matter said.
He has, at times, advertised taking a pause from the social-media platform, only to return quickly. Last year he tweeted, “Off Twitter for a while.” He resumed tweeting a day later.
Most Countries Lack Crypto Information-Sharing Laws, Watchdog Says
Only about 30% of jurisdictions surveyed said they had passed travel-rule legislation to help prevent illicit use of crypto
Most countries lack “travel rule” laws that could help prevent illicit use of cryptocurrency by criminals and terrorists, a global anti-money-laundering watchdog said Thursday.
The rules would require companies and service providers to share information about senders and recipients in cryptocurrency transactions. Only about 30% of jurisdictions surveyed by the Financial Action Task Force said they have passed such legislation, and only a small subset of the group has started enforcement of the laws.
FATF, a Paris-based intergovernmental body that develops and promotes anti-money-laundering standards, said in a report published Thursday that more countries need to understand the money-laudering and terrorist-financing risks within the crypto industry, and one way to mitigate such risks is to implement travel rules.
As of March, only 29 of 98 jurisdictions that responded to FATF’s survey said they had passed relevant rules and only 11 of those 29 had started enforcement and supervision on those rules, FATF said. About a quarter of the respondents were in the process of passing such laws and about one-third hadn’t yet started introducing relevant laws, FATF said.
While there are technological solutions to facilitate compliance with travel rules, FATF said the private sector still needs to increase the ability to exchange information across jurisdictions.
In addition, FATF said it would continue to monitor emerging risks within the sector, including the use of crypto to evade sanctions and to launder illicit proceeds from ransomware attacks. FATF also noted that member countries had expressed increasing concerns about decentralized finance and nonfungible tokens as difficult areas to implement FATF standards.
FATF sets standards for member countries to implement, and member jurisdictions then write relevant rules that would require compliance from companies and organizations. FATF conducts mutual evaluations of member countries to assess the effectiveness and implementation of the anti-money-laundering measures. FATF’s mutual evaluations consist of peer reviews in which members from different countries assess the effectiveness and implementation of one another’s anti-money-laundering measures.
FATF said it would help promote implementation of the travel-rule requirement by facilitating discussions with member countries and monitoring market trends that might need additional work. FATF will also conduct another review on the travel-rule implementation progress in June 2023.
Coinbase Has Been Providing "Historical Geo Tracking" Information And Tracing Software To Government Agencies
So much for decentralized finance.
The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., Coinbase, has been reportedly selling Immigrations and Customs Enforcement tools to track and identify cryptocurrency users, a stunning new report from The Intercept revealed this week.
The company "sold a single analytics software license to ICE for $29,000" back in August 2021, the report says. The next month, however, it sold software worth $1.36 million to the agency, the report says.
A contract involving the sales revealed that ICE "now has access to a variety of forensic features provided through Coinbase Tracer", the company's internal intelligence tool.
The tool allows people to trace transactions through the blockchain. Coinbase markets the software primarily for use in corporate compliance and law enforcement, the report says. It boasts that the tool has the ability to “investigate illicit activities including money laundering and terrorist financing” and “connect [cryptocurrency] addresses to real world entities.”
The contract revealed that ICE is now able to track transactions over a dozen digital currencies. The contract also revealed that “historical geo tracking data" was being provided to ICE, though The Intercept said details about what this data entails are fuzzy.
Coinbase spokesperson Natasha LaBranche, when asked about the contract, referenced The Intercept to the company's disclaimer on its website, which says: “Coinbase Tracer sources its information from public sources and does not make use of Coinbase user data.”
The sale comes as part of a broader pitch to sell its intelligence services to agencies like the IRS and the Secret Service, the report reveals.
Coinbase vice president of global intelligence John Kothanek said earlier this month in front of Congress: “If you are a cyber criminal and you’re using crypto, you’re going to have a bad day. … We are going to track you down and we’re going to find that finance and we are going to hopefully help the government seize that crypto.”
The Fed Is Quietly Handing Out $250 Million To A Handful Of Happy Recipients Every Single Day
The Fed's QE may be over, and QT may be just starting (it won't last long), but don't think the Fed free money giveaway is ending any time soon. In fact, for a handful of happy, mostly anonymous counterparties, the real free-money bonanza has just begun!
Case in point: the Fed's reverse repo facility. While one can debate for hours why there is a record $2.330 trillion in cash parked at the Fed's overnight facility and what it means for systemic plumbing problems, the fact is that there is a record $2.33 trillion in cash parked at the Fed's overnight facility, doing nothing.
Well not nothing: it was nothing when rates were zero, but at 1.55% which is the current reverse repo rate, that $2.33 trillion is a golden goose for the 108 counterparties that are parking cash at the facility, a mixture of money market funds, banks, GSEs and various other financial intermediaries.
How big is this particular Golden Goose? The chart below shows the payment in interest that the Fed makes day on this record $2.33 trillion in funds: as of today it amounts to just over $100 million every single day! That's right, more than $100 million in interest payments on funds parked with the Fed, which is by definition the world's only risk-free counterparty!
But wait, there's more!
Remember excess reserves? Well, technically excess reserves ended in March 2020 when the Fed reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero, thus converting the trillions in reserves held at the Fed from "excess reserves: to plain old "reserves" and which as of today amount to $3.13 trillion.
Whatever they are called now, however, reserves parked at the Fed (which is technically an incorrect phrase since the reserves are created by the Fed) also collect interest, and as of today, the Fed's Interest on (Excess) Reserves rate, or IOER, is 1.65%. This translates into $141 million in daily interest payments every single day to the various banks (mostly foreign) whose reserves are parked at the Fed!
Combining the two we get nearly a quarter billion, or to be precise $242 million and rising, in interest payments by the Fed - this is money which is printed into existence - every single day.
All of the above is with the Fed Funds rate at 1.75%. As a reminder, the Fed hopes to keep hiking at least another 175bps (or more) in the next 6 months, which will push the rate to 3.50% and will mean that the Fed will be paying half a billion in interest every single day to a handful of mostly unknown counterparties every day, money which for said counterparties is also known as (riskless) profit and which is only the result of the Fed's previous money printing.
- Wienerberger (WIB TH) +5.8%
- Wienerberger Sees FY Adj Ebitda EU900M, Saw EU750M to EU770M
- Rio Tinto (RIO1 TH) +1.2%
- EasyJet (EJT1 TH) +1.1%
- HelloFresh (HFG TH) -2.2%
- Aixtron (AIXA TH) -2.2%
- Enel (ENL TH) -2.3%
- SSE (SCT TH) -2.4%
- Infineon (IFX TH) -2.4%
- ASML (ASME TH) -2.5%
- Uniper (UN01 TH) -2.5%
- BE Semiconductor (BSI TH) -2.6%
- ASMI (AVS TH) -2.8%
- Proximus (BX7 TH) -4%
- Proximus Says SPAC Deal for Unit Telesign Terminated (June 30)
DAX:
- Deutsche Bank (DBK TH) -1.4%
- Deutsche Bank Names Markus Mueller ESG Chief Investment Officer
- Porsche SE (PAH3 TH) -1.5%
- Deutsche Post (DPW TH) -1.5%
- Daimler Truck (DTG TH) -1.8%
- Infineon (IFX TH) -1.9%
MDAX:
- Grand City Properties (GYC TH) +1.6%
- Grand City Properties Raised to Buy at HSBC; PT 18 euros
- Scout24 SE (G24 TH) -1.6%
- TeamViewer (TMV TH) -1.8%
- Commerzbank (CBK TH) -1.8%
- Commerzbank Downgraded to A2 by Moody’s, Outlook Stable
- Aixtron (AIXA TH) -2.4%
- Uniper (UN01 TH) -2.4%
SDAX:
- Bilfinger (GBF TH) +1.5%
- Bilfinger Reinstated Buy at Deutsche Bank; PT 42 euros
- Heidelberger Druck (HDD TH) -2.1%
- DWS (DWS TH) -3.4%
- DWS Cut to Neutral at Citi; PT 26.50 euros